Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

By serendipity, I am in the Chamber this afternoon, due to a change of schedule. I am glad I am here because the last few contributions have been valuable. It is a pity there are so few Members in the Chamber to reflect on them but perhaps they are doing so in their offices. However, I doubt it.

What Deputy Boyd Barrett said about the collapse of civilization is correct. It is when the titans of the day build monuments to themselves in their own interest that a greater number of people, the citizens of the world suffer. The pyramids of old were made with blocks of stone, but today's pyramids are the quantitative easing in the financial markets and the credit pyramid. That credit pyramid is controlled by far too few people. These people are getting fewer and that is where the danger lies.

It is interesting to reflect for a moment on the great exodus from the Middle East through eastern European countries to western European countries. Rivers of humanity are moving west with only the clothes on their backs. The relevant committees here in the west then try to segregate and grade these people on whether they are true refugees or economic migrants. How absurd. Then, from abroad, the giants of our small country dare to comment on these matters and this grading. They themselves are economic migrants because they do not like paying tax in the country of their birth. I do not want to name these people, but everybody knows that six names pop up in this regard. Sometimes these people pay tax by self-assessment, by way of a charity cheque to their home town schools or hospitals.

The wealth and capital these people have has earned from 6% to 8% minimum over the past 25 years, as authoritative writers and researchers have explained. To make understanding this easy, I invite everybody here to see the easy 50-minute version of what people like Stiglitz, Piketty, Krugman and Carmen Reinhart have put hundreds of hours into writing. They can see it on a home-produced David McWilliams programme - 50 minutes of the truth. The establishment here thinks it can accept what its advisers, who provide little press release snatches of what might sound good for the status quo, say but it is not the truth.

It leaves maybe up to 2 million people unnecessarily hurt by the unfair divide that has taken place in the so-called recovery.

The truth is simple. It is simply explained and, as Deputy Daly said, Bills like this are fluffy palliatives, that is all. They do not specify or get concrete but on 15 October, there will be a very concrete formula of algebra to tax the middle, the lower middle and the very low. It will be so concrete that, like the 93 year-old lady yesterday, they will be suddenly snapping out of the hypnosis of fear in court or with bailiffs at the door.

It is strange, but we are here to talk about these things and to legislate, not to confuse. We can make the laws simpler, less complex. Imagine reading a book when, every now and then, a new page or half page was put in and one was taken out. It would not make sense. The simplest income tax return form is now 26 pages long. The little lady was told, "Well, if you ring up a number, you can get an explanation about the documentation" that came from the department of broadcasting or whatever it is called, but she cannot do so. The truth is that if one rings a so-called lo-call or free 1850 number, one gets a menu which even I, who am fairly okay on the uptake, have trouble understanding. Button one is this, button two is that and button three is the other. One waits and tries to hold but will it be button one or could it be button six? This is for an elderly person - ring up and get it explained. She cannot even get through and, if she does, the call might be sent to a call centre in Scotland or Mumbai. The whole thing gets madder and madder.

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